In article <1994Feb7.211152.10382 at fullfeed.fullfeed.com> george at fullfeed.fullfeed.com (George Hrabovsky) writes:
(stuff deleted... bandwidth)
>I have found two really good books on Fractals and Chaos.
>The first is Ott's "Chaos in Dynamical Systems" which introduces the subject
>in a very clear way.
>The second (which I have loaned out and can't cite adequately) is
>Falconer's "Fractal Geometry" which is very deep and I suggest you study
>a little general topology before you tackle it.
>Both of these books I consider to be basic introductions, but you need to
>have a firm grasp of both ODE and PDE and a good grounding in topology and
>abstract (or modern) algebra would be good.
>> GEH
>
IMHO, another good introductory book on nonlinear dynamics and chaos is
Dynamics, The Geometry of Behavior
Abraham and Shaw
Addison-Wesley 1992
It is an extended tutorial, pictorially oriented. Phase space diagrams
you can actually follow. Even fractal bifurcations!
But the folksy style belies the complexity of the subject. Unless you
are comfortable with ODE and PDE, the mechanical and electrical
analogies might be hard to understand in a single reading.
Check it out!
Cheers,
- Mike Lipsett